Davidians Decry Koresh's Violence

Waco: After the apocalypse

April 21, 1993|By Fort Worth Star-Telegram

WACO, TEXAS — Members of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists at Lake Waco watched in horror as Ranch Apocalypse met its fiery end Monday, but they said their sect is non-violent.

The Lake Waco sect, primarily a publishing house that distributes the work of Davidian founder V.T. Houteff, is one of six Davidian sects known in North America. About 50 members were in the midst of their two-week annual meeting here Monday when David Koresh's compound burst into flames.

The meeting was stopped and council members watched on television as the compound, 15 miles away, burned to the ground, said Philip Smith, a council member from Bronx, N.Y.

''We broke up the meeting to look at the TV and pray for our brethren at the scene,'' Smith said.

''It is very depressing to see souls being lost, especially all those children,'' said Lennox Wilson, a council member from Queens, N.Y.

Wanda Blum of the International General Davidian Association in Calimesa, Calif., said true Davidians would not have exposed children to such danger.

''The Davidians teach as the Bible teaches: Bring up a child in the way he should go - not to steal or lie,'' Blum said.

Blum also said Koresh's actions brought reproach to the Davidian sects throughout the United States.

''Koresh did not teach the Davidian message,'' Blum said. ''We really do go by the regular Christian doctrine, although Seventh-day Adventists have disfellowshipped us. We believe the same fundamentals with additional beliefs.''

In an effort get out what they say is the true Davidian message, members of the Lake Waco sect stopped all their other publishing activities to reprint a pamphlet, The Breaking of the Seven Seals, with a foreword disavowing any connection with Koresh.

The seven seals are cited in the Bible's Book of Revelation as sealing a divine scroll and foretelling catastrophic events such as war, famine, death, martyrdom and physical disturbances linked to the end of the world.

Smith said Koresh's ''hippie'' dress and love of rock music would not fit in with traditional Davidian teachings, which denounce polygamy and child molestation and teach modesty and non-violence.

The Lake Waco sect believes that Houteff, who formed the first Davidian group in 1929 and moved to Waco three years later, gave the correct interpretation of the seven seals.

The Davidian groups estimate there are about 4,000 true Davidians worldwide, with the largest a group of 30 on a 542-acre ranch in Exeter, Mo.